Jerusalem: US Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the second time in less than 12 hours in his last ditch efforts to salvage faltering Israel-Palestinian peace talks. Kerry was expected to travel to the West Bank town of Ramallah last night to meet Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas but is said to have dropped the plan due to long intensive discussions with Netanyahu.
He is expected to be back in the region to push both sides to resolve a lingering dispute over Palestinian prisoners and continue negotiations till the end of 2014, beyond the agreed nine-month deadline ending on April 29. The top US diplomat, however, met with the Palestinian delegation, headed by Chief Negotiator Saeb Erekat, and discussed the deal to extend the negotiations.
Erekat said without the release of the fourth group of prisoners, which includes 14 Israeli Arabs, the Palestinians will not agree to discuss the extension of the talks. He stressed that the Palestinian leadership has decided that if Israel won’t go ahead with the fourth stage of prisoner release, PA will immediately turn to the United Nations seeking recognition. As the talks appeared on the brink of collapse, media reports said the US may release Jewish spy Jonathan Pollard as part of a wider package designed to resuscitate the faltering negotiations. A senior US official told Israeli daily Ha’aretz that Washington would agree to free Pollard as part of a larger move that would include dramatic Israeli steps in negotiations with the Palestinians, and not only in exchange for release of prisoners, even if those include Israeli Arabs.
“The key would be a big US concession for a big Israeli concession,” the American official reportedly said. Pollard, an American Jew, was a civilian intelligence analyst for the US Navy when he gave thousands of classified documents to his Israeli handlers almost three decades ago. Israel recruited him to pass along US secrets, including satellite photos and data on Soviet weaponry in the 1980s. Kerry and Netanyahu also discussed a proposed deal to extend the talks until the end of 2014 and to ensure the Palestinians won’t make unilateral moves at the United Nations, Ha’aretz reported. (Agencies)
